Electrical Blog #6: Progress of the VII

I decided to give a small update on how everything goes until now. So where do we start? Let’s go back to the Pinksterraces on the 3rd and 4th of June! At this nice and quiet event in the dunes of Zandvoort, we made our very first circuit kilometres with the Forze VII. Friday was the first day we came in action and the team worked like a clockwork to get the car on track in time. Five laps later and the first successful circuit debut of the Forze VII was completed. On the next day, we planned to drive a demo in front of the small crowd that turned up that weekend. After two laps, however, a technical problem occurred when our driver Kevin accelerated of the pits. The driveshaft came out of the gearbox and while doing so it damaged the tripod housing of the gearbox.

The driveshaft transfers the power and torque of the electric motors from the gearbox to the hub in the rear uprights, which then eventually makes the rear wheels turn. This driveshaft is placed with a so-called tripod connection in the gearbox as well as in the hub. There is some play in these connections to give the wheel some room to move up and down. Probably, one of the reasons that the tripod came out of the gearbox was because the distance between upright and gearbox was a little too long. We have worked incredibly hard together with our sponsors to produce and assemble new wishbones, pushrods and toe links so that the distance between gearbox and wheel is now shorter than it was before.

About Forze

Dreamteam Forze was called to life in 2007 to bring a positive contribution to the sustainability of the mobility industry. With 50 passionate and talented students from Delft University of Technology, Forze built the first hydrogen electric race car in the world. The goal of this dreamteam is to promote the use of hydrogen technology in racing. During the eleven years that Forze exists, they have built eight cars and achieved multiple great things with these cars like building the fastest hydrogen race car ever.